Iran’s new supreme leader ordered the vital Strait of Hormuz oil shipping lane to remain closed on Thursday, while US president Donald Trump said stopping the Islamic republic’s ‘evil empire’ was more important than crude prices.
- New hits on Dubai, Kuwait, S Arabia intercepts drones
- Strike on Beirut seafront kills eight
- Oil prices spike again
- US war costs hit $11.3b in six days
- UNSC demands Iran halt attacks on Gulf states
- Turkey talking to US, Iran in bid to end war
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who was reportedly injured in an air strike, has yet to appear publicly since his nomination last Sunday as supreme leader, and his defiant message was read by a newscaster on state television.
Khamenei, whose father Ali Khamenei was killed in the first wave of US-Israeli attacks at the start of the Middle East war, called for the Strait of Hormuz to remain blocked and for Gulf countries to close their US military bases.
‘The lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must definitely be used,’ Khamenei said of the waterway through which a quarter of world’s oil and liquefied natural gas usually transit.
He added that ‘a limited amount of’ Iran’s revenge for US and Israeli strikes had ‘taken concrete form, but until it is fully achieved, this case will remain among our priorities.’
Iran launched a new wave of attacks against Gulf energy targets on Thursday that sent prices oil spiking briefly above $100 a barrel and led to a warning that the crisis could lead to ‘the largest supply disruption’ in history.
But Trump dismissed growing concerns, writing on social media that ‘of far greater interest and importance to me, as president, is stopping an evil Empire, Iran, from having Nuclear Weapons, and destroying the Middle East and, indeed, the World.’
Iran warned it could wage a prolonged war with the United States and Israel that would ‘destroy’ the world economy, even as US president Donald Trump said late Wednesday the Islamic republic was facing imminent defeat.
A series of powerful explosions hit the Iranian capital, an AFP journalist said. Smoke was seen rising from western Tehran but it was not immediately clear what was targeted, the journalist said. Israel’s military said it began a new ‘wide-scale’ wave of strikes across Iran.
Blasts were also heard over Jerusalem, AFP journalists said, after the Israeli military reported missiles fired from Iran. Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned on Thursday that Tehran will ‘abandon all restraint’ if the United States and Israel attack any of its islands in the Gulf.
Images from Bahrain on Thursday showed thick smoke rising after a strike on fuel tanks in Muharraq, with residents told to stay inside and close their windows.
Drones caused damage again at Kuwait’s international airport and in downtown Dubai, while Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted drones headed towards its Shaybah oil field and its embassy district.
Shipping in and around the crucial Strait of Hormuz remains at a near-standstill, with another three vessels attacked in the Gulf off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and Iraq.
The Paris-based International Energy Authority, a world authority on energy markets, warned Thursday the 13-day conflict ‘is creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market’, which would surpass those of the 1970s.
With Gulf states slashing production and oil tankers stuck in the Gulf, benchmark oil prices have risen 40-50 per cent since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, threatening to crimp growth and stoke inflation.
A top Iranian military figure warned on Wednesday that the country could wage a prolonged war that would ‘destroy’ the world economy.
Trump, who is under mounting domestic pressure, ruled out the air campaign ending ‘immediately’ while indicating that US forces were running out of targets to hit.
‘If the White House imagines the conflict will stop when Donald Trump decides it... they’re making a mistake and ignoring the lessons of history,’ Pierre Razoux, director of studies at the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies, said.
‘The Iranian regime, which no longer has anything to lose, will wage a war of attrition against the United States and Israel to punish them for their aggression.’
One Tehran resident hoping for the fall of the Islamic republic said she was worried about the US and Israel calling off their air campaign despite her fears about the daily bombardment.
‘I don’t know what will happen to us mentally and emotionally if it doesn’t work out this time,’ she said.
The conflict has spread across the region, with hundreds killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon, including at least eight more died on Beirut’s blood-stained seafront where displaced families were camping in tents.
After the Iran-backed Hezbollah group announced a new operation against Israel on Wednesday, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said he was ordering troops to ‘prepare for expanding’ attacks on Lebanon.
The violence has killed more than 687 people in Lebanon, according to authorities, while more than 8,00,000 people have registered as displaced.
In Iran, over three million people have been displaced by the war, according to new figures issued Thursday by the UN’s refugee agency.
Israel’s military said it had begun a new ‘wide-scale’ wave of strikes in Iran on Thursday, including one southeast of Tehran that it said had targeted a site used for developing nuclear weapons.
Satellite imagery from Wednesday shows what appeared to be three strikes from bunker-busting munitions at the Parchin military facility.
US forces said they had struck 28 Iranian mine-laying vessels amid fears that Tehran could render the Strait of Hormuz unnavigable.
Oil prices have soared past $100 a barrel despite an announcement that leading consumer countries would authorise a record release of their strategic crude reserves in action coordinated by the IEA.
Iran’s health ministry said on March 8 that more than 1,200 people have been killed in the war, a figure AFP has not been able to independently verify.
In Israel, authorities said 14 people have been killed, while attacks in the Gulf have killed 24 people, including 11 civilians and seven US military personnel, according to local authorities and the US Central Command.
The war has cost the United States more than $11.3 billion, lawmakers were told in a Pentagon briefing, according to the New York Times.
Air strikes killed at least nine Iran-backed fighters in Iraq on Thursday near the Iraqi-Syrian border, two senior security officials said.
An attack on an Italian military base in Iraqi Kurdistan, where Italian troops train Kurdistan security forces, caused damage but no injuries, officials said.
The UN Security Council on Wednesday called for Iran to halt its attacks on Gulf states, in a resolution that did not mention US or Israeli strikes on Iran, prompting Tehran’s ambassador to decry a ‘blatant misuse’ of the international body.
The resolution, passed by 13 votes with two abstentions, ’demands the immediate cessation of all attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran against Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan.’
It also ‘condemns any actions or threats by the Islamic Republic of Iran aimed at closing, obstructing, or otherwise interfering with international navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.’
Turkey is talking to both Washington and Tehran in a bid to end the Middle East war, foreign minister Hakan Fidan said Thursday as the conflict raged for a 13th day.
‘We have been experiencing the most intense moments of the war in the last few days,’ he told a news conference in Ankara alongside his German counterpart Johann Wadephul.
‘The question is, what chances are there for negotiation, to what extent is it possible?’ he added.
‘This war should end as soon as possible... We are talking to the Iranian side, and we are talking to the American side,’ he said.
‘But there is an ongoing military operation, there are certain realities: this unprovoked attack on Iran is as unjust and unlawful as Iran’s attacks on Gulf countries.’
